Clinging to the Fringes Cafe - Oz Drop In Centre.

But, goodfielder, the interested bystanders are directed affected by the control of the vehicle! They're in the back seat & they're seeing a crash any minute! Not just the driver is going to come to a nasty end!

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A fair point. Especially when out there on the freeway there is a huge semi marked "China" which is coming up at speed.

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That big ol' truck marked China is not only comin' up at speed, it is completely out of the ken of most of the passengers in the bus marked 'Merica.

Thanks Miss Wabbit . . . hard times at Ridgemont High . . .

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So just hang in there & work with the least destructive course to our own survival?(In Oz , I mean)

<Sigh> Why is the idea of being a banana republic starting to look so attractive?

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msolga wrote:

Nah, Deb!
We look out! (being newish in the world, a bit awed, unimportant & looking for answers...)
They (meaning the overwhelming number of US posters here) are focussed in what's important to them.They look in.
The thing is, what's happening in Oz is a micro version of what's happening in the US. Our federal government seems bent on this!
So why shouldn't we comment? Why shouldn't we have an opinion, for god's sake? We're dealing with the same crap!

1.Most Murricans here aren't so hostile to outside comment. Mainly the further right are. I have seen the less temperate amongst us get snarkier than the average American when they comment negatively re Oz.

2.The bananas?

3.Care to tell us Set, or is it private?

4. Welcome Goodfielder!

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I'm sorry, but right now i'm listening to The Dr. Demento Show, and at any event, i'm sworn never to discuss bananas in public.

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dlowan wrote:

2.The bananas?

I well remember Brother Paul telling us that unless we got our (economic) act together we'd become a banana republic. Well, call me unrealistic or whatever, but hell, I SO miss the time when we didn't try so hard to be successful on the global market! Yes, yes, yes, yes, I KNOW what you're thinking, but what we're experiencing now is crap, on so many levels. It is just horrible to sell your soul & integrity for what we have "gained". Don't ask me what we should have been done instead - I'm not an economist. I'm just so disappointed at what has happened to this country (economically & politically). And who got the gains anyway? Who missed out? And what are the prospects for those who missed out? Our Federal government feels no responsibility for them.
OK, now tell me how out of touch with reality I am. Sad

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Apparently if they - Hawke and Keating - hadn't "freed" (if I'd know it was taken hostage I would have done something about it) up the economy we would have ended up like Argentina. Or so I heard. While I'm willing to listen to that argument (not being an economist all I could do would be listen) I still wonder if politics hasn't become a question of one man's personal ideology rather than the search for what works and what's good.

thanks for the welcome Deb Very Happy

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I'd like to.

Oh - that was addressed to Msolga's post - I'd like to tell her she is wrong!

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goodfielder wrote:

Apparently if they - Hawke and Keating - hadn't "freed" (if I'd know it was taken hostage I would have done something about it) up the economy we would have ended up like Argentina..

Yep, that's what they've told us again & again & again ....
Trouble is, we have all these unskilled workers who are living a life worse than Argentina (whatever that means!)

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msolga wrote:

goodfielder wrote:
Apparently if they - Hawke and Keating - hadn't "freed" (if I'd know it was taken hostage I would have done something about it) up the economy we would have ended up like Argentina..

Yep, that's what they've told us again & again & again ....
Trouble is, we have all these unskilled workers who are living a life worse than Argentina (whatever that means!)

Oh lord Msolga - NO!!!

We cannot imagine how awful poverty in South America is.

I do wonder if our poor sometimes have a poverty of spirit that some cultures do not have in deepest poverty - but to be poor in South America?

Sadly, I do think that Keating was right - a single little country could not resist the tides of globalisation and right wing economics.

I recall one of the most horrible fights I ever had with Craven - and that is saying something! - was about this. I do think that we had to do those things - and I think it could have been managed better. But the goddamn "trickle down effect" does not sem to be working well here - though I do think the economies of some third world countries are benefitting.

I am with you - I don't understand economics - though I do think many who claim to do so are charlatans.

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Hey - we wanna know about you, GF!!!!

Anything you are comfortable to put "out there" about yourself?

I have a good mate in major crime, I do.

A policeman's lot is not an easy one!

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Argentina has the "least" hispanic population in South America. The Gemans, English, Irish and Italians have lived there literally for centuries in significantly large numbers. Argentines tend to see and describe themselves as Europeans and not Americans (to the contempt of other Latin American nations). Even in the darkest days of Juan Perone's crypto-facist regime, poor Argentines were never as poor as the poor in other Latin American countries (significantly, there was never a large Indian population in Argentina as there was in the other nations of South America--that contribution to an underclass was largely nugatory). After the collapse of the military junta at the end of the Falklands/Malvinas War, though, things got much worse for them than anyone could remember. They're still haunted by their past and resentful of a world that does not accord them the respect and notice they believe they deserve.

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The poverty was caused by the war, Setanta? Economic mismanagement, perhaps? (I'm wondering in Oz why we were warned that this could happen to us. Confused

)

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The war could very well have been a response by Galtieri to his inability to deal with the economic slide which was overtaking Argentina, as was the case with so much of the "first" world after 1980.

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Ah, I see. War apparently can be quite useful & diverting.

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dlowan wrote:

Hey - we wanna know about you, GF!!!!

Anything you are comfortable to put "out there" about yourself?

I have a good mate in major crime, I do.

A policeman's lot is not an easy one!

I will blather something chronic if given the chance Very Happy

Got a mate in Major Crime (or as we increasingly and - for me - irritatingly call it "the Majors")? Not a rugby player is he? Cool

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Not as I know on, he ain't.

Oh goddess, it is Monday morning.......waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!

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Yep Monday but it's a nice day, not raining, blue sky (a bit of cloud).
Jeez what the heck's wrong with me Very Happy

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no-one invited me Sad

Is that because I won't discuss politics (it only encourages them) - or.....

maybe

no-one wants to talk to me.....

Move over Set.....

gettin' a good case of da blues here! (and, now that I'm back in Sydney - it's bloody stopped raining!) Mind you, weather's still crappy - and still no rain in catchment areas, but...........

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Clinging to the Fringes Cafe - Oz Drop In Centre.

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